


Glass Slipper

by canadino



Category: One Piece
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 00:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6682516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadino/pseuds/canadino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cinderella, this ain't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glass Slipper

As it were when cohabiting with a group of people in close quarters, he was very aware of his crew’s eccentricities and habits. Some of their behavior was fairly innocuous, like Nami’s occasional counting and inventory of her gold coin and the handful of beautiful treasures she kept double locked in a hard, metal box or Usopp’s tendency to fiddle with anything in his hands or within reach. Luffy’s inclination to lick the plates whenever it was his turn to clear the table was off-putting but understandable; maybe Chopper’s hybrid nature excused the way he entertained himself for hours by invoking hiccups and giggling through it - certainly, Robin’s use of her multiple hands to keep her clothes spotless was notable, even knowing she lived in a desert and put up with sand in her hair and under her fingernails for years. Zoro figured he probably had behavioral signatures too, the way he tapped the hilt of his swords when he was feeling bored or how he practiced knots on his bandana. 

Usually the smell of shoe polish was strongest on laundry days, toward the rear of the ship on the deck. Zoro was hoping to filch the last bits of yesterday’s leftovers before Luffy got to them - the captain was fidgeting on Merry’s maidenhead, a sure sign his stomach was already rearing and roaring in protest - and went into the kitchen to find a worn bit of tablecloth on their dining table with a canister of pitch black polish. Sanji was already looking up, his fingers hidden under a grey handkerchief that he was rubbing across the toe of his shoes. “No,” he said automatically.

“I wasn’t going for the wine,” Zoro protested, bristling on instinct.   


“Save it for Luffy. He’ll whine for hours until dinner if you don’t.” The other thing about living with someone in close quarters was that it got easier and easier to read the cues of someone he passed to the bathroom or sneaking away for some time alone. Sanji had a burned out cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth; he had been so focused he hadn’t bothered to fetch a fresh one or relight. “I don't care if his metabolism is unnatural; it’s not healthy to eat a lot of snacks between meals. It messes up the internal system.”  


“I just wanted water,” Zoro insisted. He fetched a glass and poured himself a generous amount from the kettle, making sure to be extra showy about it to prove it was his intention all along. Sanji rolled his eyes. “What are you doing that for, anyway?” Zoro asked, after taking too big of a gulp and struggling to maintain his composure so as not to give away that he nearly choked in front of someone who would never let him live it down. “You’re not going to any fancy event or anything and it’s not like you’re messing them around in dirt on the ship.”  


“A gentleman must always look his best,” Sanji said, looking affronted. His black shoes were gleaming, and he sat back, stretching to crack his back. His socks were black too, lying side by side next to him, his feet a cream white to match his hands and his neck, the type of skin that reddened and burned easily in the sun. “My legs are my weapons. When I knock someone out, I want these beauties to be the last thing they see before they go cold.” Sanji’s fingertips were blackened with dried polish, so they did not transfer when he reached up to loosen his tie after a job well done.   


Zoro put down his glass next to the sink and picked up a shoe. “Hey,” Sanji warned. “Don’t smudge the polish. I’ll mince you if you make me have to do it all over again.” 

“Relax. Your squawking is loud enough to wake the dead fish from the dead.” Sanji sputtered, and he sputtered a little more when Zoro got down on his knees and started to put the shoe on his foot. All traces of dirt was scrubbed from the surface and from between the grooves underfoot; the shoelaces had been laundered and dried. “Shoes are meant to be worn, not admired.”  


Sanji had stopped resisting, letting Zoro put the shoe on without touching the buffed surface. It was still smooth, no fingerprints. “You know who you look like? The prince in Cinderella. The idiot who touched all kinds of women’s feet to find the girl he met for a few hours and fell in love with.” 

Zoro wasn’t very good with laces, and Nami had told him so, saying it was juvenile of him to triple-knot his own boots. Sanji would complain his ears off if he pulled those black laces too hard. “Then you must be the idiot girl who let an obsessed foot fetish prince touch her feet. Now that’s love.” 

Sanji’s lip curled in that certain curious way, the kind of frustration he never showed around anyone else, no matter how much Luffy whined for thirds and fourths or when Chopper snuck cookie batter whenever he baked for Nami and Robin. “If you like feet so much, you should just stay where you belong - underfoot.” 

The black polish was going to take forever to wash out, but Zoro wore the footprint on the front of his shirt proudly out on the deck. The look Nami was giving him was also going to take forever to wear out, her brows furrowing as she quickly calculated the shoe size and owner of the print in her head as she stared at him, but what to some was a pumpkin was to him a carriage, skid marks and all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! More leg worship!


End file.
